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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345062">on the subject of grace under pressure</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stophit/pseuds/stophit'>stophit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SEVENTEEN (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Gen, Prompt Fill, Teamwork</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:55:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,145</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345062</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stophit/pseuds/stophit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's never a dull moment when it comes to defusing bombs, least of all when the four of them make the best bomb defusal team this side of the country.<br/>(Very loosely based on the game <i>Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes</i>.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>on the subject of grace under pressure</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It should be hard for Hansol to focus on Wonwoo’s instructions between Mingyu rattling on over the comms and Seungcheol clinging to Hansol as he fires insults back at Mingyu, but if he wasn’t used to it by now, they’d be dead long ago.</p><p>He would think they know how to keep it together every time they see a bomb by now, but these are all their nervous tells, and they know how to defuse each other as efficiently as these bombs. Either that or they ignore them, which he and Wonwoo promptly do in order to finish this module.</p><p>Mingyu and Seungcheol are arguing about where to get dinner after this is all over. Wonwoo says, “Hansol, confirm panel five has a black wire?”</p><p>“I’m already shitting myself here, I don’t need <em>more</em> spicy food,” Seungcheol whines straight into Hansol’s ear. He can hear it both through the comms and in the physical space next to him.</p><p>Still, Seungcheol’s hand is steady as he points the flashlight down at the bomb. The power’s been cut to this entire building for safety, which is nothing new, but it still feels like an extra layer of something that could go wrong. “Wonwoo, yes, connected to B.” The pliers are slipping from his grip, but only after he cuts the wire can he put them down and wipe his hands.</p><p>“I’m not saying <em>you</em> have to get spicy food, I’m just saying I want the option,” Mingyu says, getting as heated as Hansol feels in his bomb suit.</p><p>“Hansol, cut it, now.”</p><p>One wrong move and it’s over. Hansol thinks briefly about his family, about Mingyu and Wonwoo who are watching the luxury apartments from a safe distance away, the scouts from the bomb disposal team doing a final sweep. He thinks <em>only</em> briefly, because he can’t hesitate as he pokes the buttons to find the proper panel, tallying the colors of wires under his breath.</p><p>Seungcheol and Mingyu paused their conversation at some point. Over his shoulder, Seungcheol holds his breath as he uses the hand not holding the flashlight to slowly move the red and blue wires enough out of the way for Hansol to snip the black one unobstructed.</p><p>He trusts the experts’ instructions, so he’s not as nervous as he should be in the face of something that could keel him. Maybe this icy calm is an unsustainable defense mechanism that’ll explode one day like these bombs, but for now, he’s calm because he has faith in everyone to do what they should.</p><p>It doesn’t mean that he won’t allow himself a tiny sigh of relief when they’re still alive after he cuts the wire, though. The light indicating the module’s power flickers off, marking it a success. Seungcheol lets out a half-scream, half-sigh straight into his ear again before nearly falling backward with relief (like he always does).</p><p>“Three more modules?” Wonwoo asks the second he hears their sighs of relief. There’s no time to waste, although they’ll always celebrate a success.</p><p>“Yeah!” Seungcheol screams, sitting back up and staring at the bomb again. Without looking away, he puts a hand on Hansol’s shoulder, silent permission for him to fall back to catch his breath. It’s real stressful, defusing bombs; alternating the defusing of each module whenever possible became an unspoken agreement between them.</p><p>It’s the only way Seungcheol allows any of them to go on the field with him, otherwise he’d be out here alone like he tried to be from the very start. It’s not glamorous, but having three people in the control room and only one on the field never worked well for them, anyway; too much chaos, not enough people to physically ground Seungcheol on the field.</p>
<hr/><p>Wonwoo breathes out a sigh of relief; next to him, Mingyu does the same. They allow themselves less than a second to reorganize. The clock is always ticking.</p><p>“Alright! Wonwoo, I’m all yours,” Seungcheol says—Hansol’s taking a break for now, which is for the best. He looks at the notebook between him and Mingyu currently open to a rough schematic of the bomb’s modules scribbled by Mingyu himself. There’s three left, and one of them is going to need Hansol for most efficiency.</p><p>“What happened to me?” Mingyu whines.</p><p>“I said what I said. Knob.”</p><p>“You’re a knob,” Mingyu says. With his right hand, he points accusingly out the window of the office building they’re in across the street to the luxury apartments, as if Seungcheol could see it from there. With his left hand, he’s already scrolling through their database.</p><p>“Yours then, Mingyu,” Wonwoo says. “I’ll set up for you and Hansol, then me and Cheol after this.” All four of them have a sense of which expert and which technician is responsible for which module, but for the sake of clarity, they say all the important things out loud.</p><p>Wonwoo really doesn’t know how they’ve gotten this far without dying, but they’re efficient enough to always be the first team called in to defuse any bombs this side of the country. They’re professional and prim and proper when it comes to accepting jobs and getting debriefed. But if anyone were to watch them on the field? They’d never get called in for anything ever again.</p><p>He glances at their synced timers, one for the bomb proper and another seven for the modules on the bomb that came with one. It’s a second job trying to wrangle Seungcheol and Mingyu in line, but with the amount of time left, they’re just antsy, that’s all. Easy to ignore. They’ve been in this building for entirely too long, and he doesn’t blame them; Wonwoo and Hansol get quiet under pressure until the final seconds, and sometimes Mingyu and Seungcheol have to prompt them and check for signs of life.</p><p>Who the hell sets up six bombs in quick succession in a luxury apartment, anyway? Real nice of the criminal to put sixty minutes on each bomb and have them count down to the same detonation time.</p><p>While their nervous tells can be annoying, they’ll never not do their jobs. Case in point: even as Mingyu complains, his eyes never go anywhere but the screen, the building across the street, and their schematics. Mingyu’s the one that handles all the technical instructions, good at picking out details and making a full picture out of it. He’s got a real knack for knowing <em>exactly</em> what Seungcheol and Hansol are looking at, but his brain-to-mouth process usually gets fucked up, which is generally where Wonwoo comes in.</p><p>Wonwoo, on top of being an impromptu Mingyu-to-common-sense translator, is their record keeper and memory god (in Seungcheol’s words). He has meticulous logs of everything they’ve ever defused from their time together in their final training tests to now, which Intelligence loves him for.</p><p>“Mingyu, five, ten, eleven. Wonwoo, ready on Hansol’s module,” Seungcheol says, bringing Wonwoo back to the present. He didn’t even realize he’d paused for a second watching everything unfold. Seungcheol’s the best at keeping everyone together in a way so organic that it doesn’t even feel like he’s leading them around half the time.</p><p>It’s not a bad team, all things considered. There’s a reason they’re not dead, and there’s a reason they keep getting called in.</p><p>He glances down at the schematic Mingyu’s drawn out as Mingyu says, “Left.” Wonwoo watches as he switches windows faster to the appropriate database just to double check his answer, which Wonwoo decides to pretend he doesn’t see. He doesn’t need an extra heart attack. “Check again in a few.”</p><p>Seungcheol hums in agreement before he says. “Sol, all yours.”</p><p>“Mingyu, we’re doing the one with an English word for a password,” comes Hansol’s weary voice through the comms.</p>
<hr/><p>Mingyu already has that page open, anticipating it. He hears the soft beeping of Hansol poking the module’s buttons, and he gives him a second. “Thanks for helping me practice my amazing language skills. Polyglot who? Me.” Seungcheol snorts at him. “Hansol, what letters are in the first cycle?”</p><p>“A, H, W, T, E. Second has O, T, M, E, R.”</p><p>Beside them, the walkie-talkie crackles to life with an update from the field team. Wonwoo mutes himself and talks with them off to the side.</p><p>“Hansol, need the third set,” he rushes to say, ripping a page out of his notebook and scribbling furiously. From the side, Wonwoo confirms through the comms that this is the last bomb. After Hansol rattles off the next five letters, he says, “Seungcheol, Wonwoo, ready on memory.”</p><p>There must be at least a hundred known passwords in the database now, but Mingyu still knows them like the back of his hand. This has to be one of the more challenging modules, and he knows that Intelligence is working on a way to automate the process of narrowing the passwords down, but Mingyu’s learned to work it out until then.</p><p>While Seungcheol and Wonwoo starting up on the last module that needs attention, Mingyu lands on three possible passwords. It’s basic elimination, and even if Intelligence keeps constantly updating their database with new bullshit password combinations they keep cracking, it’s still not too difficult as long as they actually remember to tell the experts and technicians beforehand that they’ve added things.</p><p>“Hansol, A-T-O-L-L.”</p><p>“Seungcheol, stage one, two.”</p><p>“Mingyu, impossible.”</p><p>He glances at their synced timer. Overlapping instructions is a necessary evil, but it never fails to make everything a little more intense. It’s getting down to the wire. Mingyu tries not to laugh at his own joke. They already defused the module with visible wires.</p><p>“Wonwoo, stage two, three.”</p><p>“Hansol, H-O-R-U-S.”</p><p>Hansol confirms the password was correct. Mingyu breathes out a sigh of relief. He’s got enough faith in his knowledge of procedure and quick thinking to get the right passwords like this, but getting something wrong will never not be a fear in all their minds.</p><p>He and Wonwoo always bring a compact version of their workspace to a location where, even if they can’t see Seungcheol and Hansol themselves, they can at least see the building they’re working in. If Mingyu was safely at base when he made one wrong move at the cost of Seungcheol and Hansol’s lives? It’d be hard to live with the loss, but it’d be harder to live with the loss if all he had was a loud, loud silence over the comms over one wrong instruction. It’s why he and Seungcheol keep talking. Arguing is a sign of life, of hot blood in their veins.</p><p>It’s a morbid way of thinking, sure. It’s not like they need an extra reminder that their friends can die at any moment, potentially by their hands. But if it’s his fault, he needs to feel the explosion himself. He needs to be close enough that if this window in front of him and Wonwoo shatters with the shock waves of an explosion, the glass would leave its own scars.</p><p>Mingyu lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He’s still on standby, because there’s less than a minute left on each of their synced timers. He allows Wonwoo and Seungcheol a brief second to relay information to each other; this module needs more concentration in the later stages, and they’re almost five layers deep now.</p><p>Wonwoo nudges the notebook of the schematic between them as he rips out another piece of paper to scribble with his right hand, his left hand scrolling through the meticulously crafted flowchart they’ve gathered information for over the years.</p><p>Mingyu looks down at the schematic. He blinks.</p><p>“Hansol, check the knob again.”</p><p>On the other side of the receiver, he hears Seungcheol suck air in through his teeth. “Shit.”</p><p>“Focus, hyung,” Hansol says. “Mingyu. Twenty-two seconds. Five, seven, ten, eleven, twelve—”</p><p>“Keep it where it is,” Mingyu says as Wonwoo scrunches his eyes shut behind his glasses and repeats his instruction to Seungcheol. “Hansol, time on the bomb?”</p><p>“Fifty-three. I’ll keep watch.”</p>
<hr/><p>The display is flickering. They’ve cut off enough power to the bomb at this point that Seungcheol has to strain to read the numbers that show up in the darkness, even with the power shut down in this luxury apartment building.</p><p>They’re on stage ten, and he can hear the strain in Wonwoo’s voice as he quickly and accurately gives him instructions, but they can’t fight the technology itself. Seungcheol just desperately wishes he could smack the bomb like the side of an old CRT television to get it to show the number immediately, but it’s a damn <em>bomb</em>.</p><p>“Wonwoo, stage ten, three,” he says.</p><p>“Seungcheol, four.”</p><p>As he presses the button marked 4 and waits for the next number to flicker <em>again</em>, Hansol freezes beside him. Seungcheol’s eyes flicker over to the panel Hansol’s been watching, and his blood runs cold too, but there’s no room for hesitation here—especially when the number on the module he’s responsible for comes into view. He nudges Hansol into action first before forcing his own heart to start pumping again, keeping his voice clear as he relays the next number.</p><p>Hansol says under Seungcheol’s voice, “It changed, hyung.”</p><p>He hears Mingyu mutter <em>shit</em> and type furiously.</p><p>This is where it really matters, more than earlier. Each of them together are still a team, but they all have to focus on their specific, overlapping stream of information with this little time left, and both he and Hansol have to listen for numbers from Wonwoo and Mingyu, respectively.</p><p>No use thinking about what could happen. They all know the risks of failing to focus.</p><p>Wonwoo takes a deep breath. Then, he’s starting again, a millisecond before Hansol starts rattling off numbers. “Seungcheol, stage eleven?” he confirms with Seungcheol at the same time Hansol starts rattling off numbers.</p><p>“Mingyu, three, four, seven—”</p><p>“Wonwoo, stage eleven, three.”</p><p>“Nine, eleven—”</p><p>“Cheol, two.”</p><p>He waits for the next number to flicker onto the screen, neon green against black struggling to blink back at him. He has to keep it together—even if he feels like he might cry out of frustration, the visor of his bomb suit is already starting to fog with a familiar panic, and he doesn’t need that on top of the bomb’s fading numbers. “Wonwoo, stage twelve, one.”</p><p>(“Five seconds.” Hansol’s voice is strained.</p><p>“Hansol, clockwise and up.”)</p><p>“Cheol, three.”</p><p>He nearly presses the wrong button as Hansol turns the knob beside him, clicking into the <em>up</em> position, their shoulders bumping. Hansol’s fingers are shaking too. Seungcheol wills himself to keep it together, to wait until Hansol’s finished so neither of them mess up where it’s preventable.</p><p>Hansol’s module reaches zero.</p><p>They stare for a second at the timer above the knob, holding their breaths, deathly still. Then, the double zeros flicker away, and all that’s left is the periodic beeping of the bomb’s final timer.</p><p>Thank <em>G</em><em>od</em>.</p><p>“Guys?” Mingyu says. His voice is small, like he’s scared to ask.</p><p>“Yeah,” Hansol says immediately. “Yeah, yeah, yeah—we’re fine, we’re here.”</p><p>“Don’t do that!” Mingyu says, sounding like he’s about to cry. “We thought we fucked up!”</p><p>Seungcheol spares a glance at Hansol to make sure he’s steady before he punches in the final number, the tiny, stupid, <em>thin button</em> marked with a 3. He grits his teeth just as Wonwoo asks him about his module again.</p><p>The bomb stops with twenty-three seconds left on the its timer, and then it powers down.</p><p>Hansol lets out a scream, low at first, then growing in volume. It prompts Mingyu and Wonwoo to let out their own sounds of victory, but it’s not <em>entirely</em> over yet. Seungcheol keeps it together <em>just</em> a bit longer. “That’s the last one, right?”</p><p>“Last one,” Wonwoo says, excited and a bit out of breath. “The digital scan came up negative, and Soonyoung’s team did a final sweep and it was fine, they’ve taken out the detonators of the other ones you guys already did.”</p><p>Seungcheol thinks he blacks out for a second as he screams with victory, flopping onto Hansol’s shoulder and letting out a sob. “That’s it! It’s over!”</p><p>They’ve never done six bombs in one day. They were all set for an hour, and at first, ten minutes for a bomb seemed like a luxury. But sixty minutes for six bombs across <em>forty floors</em> with the building's power cut off is an absolute nightmare. Between sprinting to the locations the scouts marked for them and disassembling the bombs after disabling them, they only had something like four minutes for each.</p><p>Hansol rips off his helmet before yanking Seungcheol’s off, too, and the smell of a rich person’s luxury apartment has never smelled so <em>decadent</em>. “Holy shit,” Seungcheol says, laughing. “Do you think I could take a bottle of wine? You think this person would realize?”</p><p>“No and yes,” Mingyu says, but he sounds like he’s considering it. “Just disassemble the thing and get the hell out of there!”</p><p>“Don’t need to tell me twice.” Seungcheol groans.</p><p>Hansol’s already shed most of his bomb suit as he crawls back to the case with all their tools and neutralized bomb parts, and Seungcheol fans himself as he peels all the layers away, unstrapping all the Kevlar and tossing it to the side.</p><p>Wonwoo’s voice sounds shaky, like it always does after a close job. “Soonyoung’s team is coming by to collect the last of the bomb guts, by the way,” he says as Hansol starts going at the bomb with elbow grease and a screwdriver.</p><p>Seungcheol grabs the pliers. For a second, he thinks he might collapse while cutting away excess wires and removing extraneous parts so Hansol can take the casing off. It’s hard to stay upright, but things aren’t over yet until they’re out of the building and in the clear, so he fights the adrenaline jitters and forces his hands to take enough of the bomb apart to get to the detonator and safely contain it for the field team.</p><p>He’s exhausted, and he wants nothing more than to lay on the floor of these luxury apartments that are far beyond his paycheck, and maybe still steal that bottle of wine. If Jeonghan from Intelligence was a technician instead, he would’ve grabbed it before even defusing any of the six bombs in the building. But as Hansol and Wonwoo become talkative once more, and he and Mingyu rest from their nonstop chatter, he knows that he doesn’t want to sleep here and pass out without knowing <em>they’re</em> safe and sound too.</p><p>Soonyoung’s field team shows up to the apartment and chats with them about grabbing dinner as they handle extremely volatile material as easy as breathing, and Seungcheol grumbles to himself, “Looks like we’ll have to actually consider going to the spicy food place.”</p>
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